Okay, so it has been a little while since I went thought and posted a new article. It has been the off season for sales and so I went through compiled a list things I wanted to write about and this was the top of my list, especially since it is about to start with a new Art Auction season.
With this upcoming auction season, I know that there will be some things that go up for sale that are going to bring some very high dollar figures and some that won’t. As someone who writes about what happens in the art auction world, I would like to give my list of what to look for and what to avoid this next year as you might be looking to purchase works.
First, I would seriously avoid things that were mass produced. This goes without saying that the things that were mass produced will not be worth as much, now and for the long term. Sure you may find the rare mass produced item that the vast majority of produced objects could have been lost or destroyed over time, like a Dürer print (which I would buy an earlier work of his over a later work, but if I were to buy or recommend to by a later work, then make sure it is an earlier series of that work or print) but I would highly suggest to stay away from things like Picasso’s later works. There are SO many of them out there that were mass produced during his lifetime that there is really no value to the work, the only thing that you would be paying for is his signature…and sometimes that is even nothing more than a rubber stamp. If you were to do a work by him, buy something from his early years of cubism or from his rose or blue periods.
I would also stay away from a lot of modern contemporary works. Unless you know for a fact that the artist just received a life changing award or commission to creat some piece, the returns on the work are way too risky. There is no promise that there is financial return on the work and the chances of the work staying stagnate in value or maybe worse, actually decreasing in value are highly possible. True, you could be the luckiest person in the world on a gamble and buy a piece at dirt sale prices and the artist blows up, but the chances of that are not very high. If you are buying a work just because you like the artistic beauty of it though, that is a completely different story, just make sure that the art work is real and not a copy or a fake and this can be dome by knowing the history of the work.
However, if you, as a buyer, would like to do some smart investing, I would suggest to go with artists that you know or may have heard of before, maybe something from the 1800s or early 1900s, and find something that is rather one of a kind or something that is of a limited edition (especially for prints or photographs). For artists from the 1800s, try and find the sketches they had done of their more famous works, things that show their idea process unfolding. These are becoming more and more rare as time passes as more and more of them are being lost, accidentally destroyed or are falling into collections. Sometimes, with a little research, you can even make a connection between just a sketch that they might have gotten for a low price and then connect it to a master piece.
I would suggest to lean this year towards sketches and lesser known works by famous artists, which sounds like it would either be a no brainer or an insane idea, but it would depend on how you look at it. If one would take the example of the hand written notes by Leonardo Da Vinci. They, today, are priceless. However, Many years ago, they weren’t seen as nearly as valuable as what they are today. Now of course they are not worth as much as let’s say the Mona Lisa, but they are still worth so much more than anyone would or could have ever dreamed. I can see that the sketches and notes by Manet and other impressionists all the way through Dada artist like Max Ernst to pop icons like Richard Hamilton and Andy Warhol someday reaching prices that would make any investor or his/her future family very happy.
Art and Auction 